Yearly Archives: 2013

The Big Lie – David Cameron’s Divide And Rule Strategy

Posted on 08/02/2013 | 7 comments

The concept of The Big Lie as a propaganda technique has a long and well-documented, though tragically chequered history. It was a charge leveled at Jews by Adolf Hitler, with chilling irony as it turned out, accusing them en masse of laying the blame for Germany’s defeat in World War I at the feet of German General Erich Ludendorff.

Hitler’s definition of the Big Lie in his infamous “Mein Kampf” referred to a lie which is “so colossal that no-one would believe anyone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”, and which would therefore, paradoxically, be accepted as true. “Mein Kampf” was published in 1925, but history tells us that both Hitler and his loathsome creature of propaganda, Josef Goebbels, would use the Big Lie technique in an attempt to justify the persecution and mass murder of six million Jews, many of them German citizens, during World War II. Historian Jeffrey Herf maintains that the Big Lie was employed by the Nazis to transform a long-standing antisemitism into a culture of acceptance for a programme of genocide, at least among the thousands of people required to collaborate or actually undertake the mass-slaughter of so many fellow human beings.

The Nazis’ euphemistic reference to a “Final Solution” was intended to mask a foul crime, perpetrated on a vast pan-continental scale, and justified by the Big Lie. It is the most extreme example conceivable of what can happen when such an effective propaganda tool is deployed and redeployed, over and over, a drip-feed of hate-fueled misinformation which sinks deeply into the public consciousness and breeds uncritical acceptance of dogmas that might otherwise be hotly disputed. But the identical technique continues in use today, and while the end result is not comparable to the fate of the Holocaust victims, the thinking behind modern propaganda, with its intent of marginalising an entire section of society, is directly analogous.

Enter the Big Liar

The current Government’s presentation of its policies to tackle a massive public debt is an object lesson in the effective use of the Big Lie. Pathologically opposed to any measures which might unduly affect the “wealth-creating potential” of the better-off, they are nevertheless determined to make massive reductions in public expenditure, and have targeted the Welfare Budget as a potential source of great savings. The impact on household budgets, of which every penny is already earmarked, is readily foreseeable. Once you cut to the bone, any further cuts are likely to lead to collapse, and fears are being expressed by voluntary organisations like the Citizens Advice Bureau that the consequences for the poorest will be grave. It’s also realistic to fear that the creation of a sub-culture, helpless to resist the diminution of its resources and likely to be forced into dependence on food banks, is inimical to prospects for national recovery. Looked at in that light, how can such policies be presented as The Answer To All Our Problems?

Enter the Big Liar, stage right. Since the formation of Cameron’s Coalition ConDem government, it’s been noticeable how much we’ve heard, via every mouthpiece and interface of the media, about Benefit Cheats. Benefit Fraudsters. Welfare Scroungers. Shirkers, Not Workers. Now, any government worth its rhetorical mettle is good for the odd sound-bite, but Mr. Cameron’s administration are as hot as any in peddling its preferred take on the “issues that face us all”. And after all, who could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously? So it must be true, then. Meanwhile, those responsible for the banking crisis, the Libor scandal, and other examples of fat cats acting criminally – or merely irresponsibly – in their frantic scramble to get even fatter, must be very grateful for where the spotlight is currently shining.

You have to listen very patiently to the more serious news outlets to hear about the depredations visited upon us by the rich and greedy. But it’s open season on those hampered by disability, poor employment prospects, sickness, infirmity and grinding poverty. Soft targets all, and there are plenty of establishment-friendly tabloids happy to feed us a daily diet of how tax money is wasted on affording such ne’er-do-wells a life of luxury, and the privilege of snoring behind drawn blinds whilst the industrious head off to work.

So how do these stories stand up to closer examination? Well, hardly at all, in truth. The “shirkers, not workers” myth is easily exploded – merely by looking at the proportion of the welfare budget spent on in-work benefits. These are benefits paid to those who have a job, but one where the wage is so pitifully low that it’s impossible for the family to subsist without an income supplement. Hardly shirkers, these people – exploited? Yes. Scroungers? It’s the Big Lie in action.

What about Benefit Fraud, then? Again, you’d be surprised to read the figures, given the loud and plaintive trumpeting of this “scandal” by the likes of the “Daily Mail”. It appears the Great British Public believe that 27% of the Welfare Budget is claimed fraudulently. The official UK Government figure? 0.7%. 2-0 to the Big Lie.

The latest manifestation of the way in which a section of society is marginalised now rears its ugly head. Thousands of people currently entitled to Disability benefits due to their care or mobility needs are going to be re-assessed under notably harsher entitlement tests, over the next few years. No improvement in their condition, no lessening of their needs will be required for their benefits to be stopped. The goal-posts are being moved, and a lot of helpless people, who previously managed to conduct their own lives assisted by the benefit payable for their condition, will be shown the red card and banished to the hinterland of dependence upon others. Extreme examples of families on £20,000 a year in benefits are quoted to justify swingeing cuts. Believe me, you just don’t want to know how disabled you’d have to be to qualify for anything like that level of help. The Big Lie rides again.

This administration is unfocused and incompetent, thrashing about horribly in its desperation to somehow prove itself worthy of re-election. A shoddy, unattractive and vindictive lot. riven by internal strife and barely suppressed internecine warfare, far more concerned by partisan interests than fair government for all. But, hey – credit where it’s due: there’s not a whole hell of a lot that Josef Goebbels or Adolf himself could teach them about propaganda, oppression of the vulnerable and the Big Lie.

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Posted in History, Life, News, Politics

Tagged Adolf Hitler, Austerity, Benefits, Coalition, David Cameron, Josef Goebbels, Nazis, The Big Lie, Tories

Should ‘Richard Crookback’ – The Vanquished Richard III – Be Welcomed “Home” To Yorkshire?

Posted on 05/02/2013 | 1 comment

The late King Richard’s remains. Note the pronounced spinal curvature.

The news that ancient remains, discovered under a Leicester car park, have been positively identified as those of King Richard III of England has led, predictably, to a bit of a tiff over where the late King should be re-interred. There are some calls from traditionalists for the royal bones to find a final resting place at Westminster Abbey, where so many of our rulers are whiling away eternity. Then again, there are those who argue that Richard’s own desire was to find a resting place at York Minster; and he was indeed the last king of the House of York – but he left no explicit instructions, and the sudden, violent nature of his demise would have made it difficult to be certain of the Royal Prerogative.

The argument for the remains to travel “home” to York may, in any event, be a little dubious, as the identification of the House of York with the geographical area of Yorkshire is less than completely accurate. Those who see the Wars of the Roses as a battle between factions equivalent to modern-day Lancashire and Yorkshire, are somewhat wide of the mark – the alignments were more upon ancient heraldic lines than any local rivalry. So estates and houses of the Duchy of York were spread throughout England and the Welsh Marches, rather than being confined to the Broad Acres.

In any event, it has to be said that some of Richard’s alleged activities during his lifetime would not reflect well upon any region claiming him as an Old Boy. On the death of his older brother, Edward IV in 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector, with responsibility for the 12 year old King Edward V and his younger brother Richard. However, our potential fellow Tyke acted swiftly to have his late brother’s marriage to the boys’ mother declared invalid, resulting in their illegitimacy – and meaning young Edward was ineligible for the throne. Richard was subsequently crowned King, and the two young princes were never again seen in public. Accusations were rife that Richard had fatally disposed of them, thus creating the legend of the Princes in the Tower.

Richard’s reign proved to be short – only two years – and tempestuous. After suppressing a rebellion led by supporters of the late Edward IV, including the Second Duke of Buckingham who was then executed at Salisbury, Richard was less fortunate when Henry Tudor challenged for the throne, and he eventually became the last English king to die in battle, slain on Bosworth Field in 1485. Due to the manner of his death, he was afforded only a cursory battlefield burial, and there he remained until he was recently unearthed from beneath that Leicester car park.

So Richard’s place in history owes much to a fairly negative press over the centuries since his death. The taint of innocent royal blood on his hands has never really gone away, despite many scholarly efforts to discover the fate of the lost princes. The identification of his remains will do little to solve that particular mystery, though it does now seem clear that Shakespearian references to a withered arm were false, though poor Richard did indeed have a distinct curvature of the spine – but again, not the “hunchback” of popular legend.

It would seem that the late king’s supposed wishes as to his long-term home after his death are unlikely to bear fruit, just as his ambitions in life were doomed to be thwarted, and perhaps that is no bad thing It seems after all more than likely that he was a fairly unscrupulous sort of chap, and given to the sort of behaviour in his own interests that we’d like to think ill befits a proper Yorkshire lad.

In any event, it would appear that the Ministry of Justice license permitting the excavation to proceed in the first place also provides that the legal partners, Leicester City Council and Leicester University, have the right to choose where Richard will end up; so a reburial with all due ceremony at Leicester Cathedral is set for early next year.

It is not yet known whether any of the present-day Royal Family plan to attend.

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Posted in History, News

Tagged Battle of Bosworth Field, DNA, history, King Richard III of England, Monarchy, Plantagenet, Princes in the Tower, Richard Crookback, Wars of the Roses

Aside

1. I have played Daddy Warbucks on stage twice, and shaved my head both times 2. I love Gilbert & Sullivan with a deep and abiding passion 3. I’ve been married to Tracy for the thick end of a quarter … Continue reading →

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Posted on 05/02/2013

Sir David Attenborough – How To Make The Very Most of a Life on Earth

Posted on 04/02/2013 | 2 comments

If there were only a course or qualification entitled “How to Get The Most out Of Life” – and, by golly, shouldn’t there be? – then who better, I earnestly enquire, to act as mentor or role-model than Sir David Frederick Attenborough, OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS?

Not content with his outstanding work fronting the BBC’s recent series “Africa”, I heard on the radio today that Sir David had just returned from China, where he’s been looking at fossils (they’ve got some great fossils in China, feathered dinosaurs, wonderful stuff). Still globe-trotting at the age of 86, it’s fair to say with only a slight risk of being accused of generalising, that he’s been everywhere, and done everything, most of it more than once. He’s our “Man For All Seasons”; certainly he’s produced stunning wildlife documentaries in every conceivable climate and environment, and he does it all with that gentle, “favourite uncle” air of calm and informative authority.

Attenborough was born in London, but grew up in the Midlands, younger brother of Richard, the world famous actor. He was fascinated by fossils from an early age, and became a passionate collector. An adoptive sister gave him a piece of amber, and half a century later, it formed the basis of his documentary “The Amber Time Machine“, focusing on the prehistoric life preserved within the fossilised tree resin. In the interim period, he gained a degree in natural sciences at Cambridge, and served in the Royal Navy as a national serviceman.

Although he’s renowned for being highly active in the area of wildlife documentary, Sir David also served a stint as Controller of BBC2, during which time he commissioned a wide variety of programming in an effort to make the then fledgling channel’s output more diverse. He took advantage of BBC2’s pioneering of colour transmission to introduce coverage of Snooker and also had a hand in the airing of such widely-ranging offerings as Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Old Grey Whistle Test, and The Money Programme.

But it is as a wildlife presenter that he is best known, and his gentle, perhaps quirky personality seems to lend itself to this field in a uniquely watchable, entertaining and informative way. His distinctive voice, too, resonates with the empathy he feels towards the subjects of his many and varied documentaries. You listen to him, and you can feel how much he cares for the well-being of all the species he has encountered, how acutely aware he is of being a member of that species – Man – most inimical to the interests of our fellow travellers on Spaceship Earth, and how passionate he is about conservation and the need to keep ecosystems ticking over. Not in the least squeamish, he acknowledges and defends the role of the predator in the food chain, and manages to present the plight of hunter and hunted with equal sympathy.

Quite apart from all of his achievements though – and they are many – what a life this man has led, and continues to lead. A computation of all the miles he has travelled, covering the globe, ascending peaks and diving depths, would produce a very big number indeed. He’s witnessed most facets of life, from the intricate behaviour of micro-organisms, to the mighty progress of the blue whale, and just about everything in between. To see him completely accepted by apes in their natural habitat, having painstakingly gained their trust over a long period – just that we might see them go about their daily routines through the camera’s eye – is to see a consummate professional at work. And he’d certainly be the first to acknowledge that he is in fact a pro among pros; the worth of the team behind the cameras is acknowledged at the end of each programme in the “Africa” series. But there’s no doubt who the star is (apart from the animals themselves, of course) – and thankfully, there’s not the remotest sign that his powers are as yet on the wane.

Presenters come, and presenters go, and the general trend is for the quality of wildlife programming output to improve in leaps and bounds as the cameras and TV’s become more sophisticated. But you need an exceptional human being behind all that technology (and in front of it, too) – and as has been proved time and again over a career exceeding sixty years, Sir David Attenborough is simply the best.

NB – anybody who wants to check out Sir David’s online BBC Nature Archive, click here.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged africa, animals, BBC, david attenborough, documentary, wildlife

The Greatest Goal I Ever Saw Against Leeds United – Roy Wegerle’s Mazy Run and Finish for QPR

Posted on 04/02/2013 | Leave a comment

For any football fan asked to nominate a favourite goal, the prospect opens of a pleasurable half an hour recalling all those wonderful strikes down the years, mentally compiling a short-list, and then proudly revealing to the questioner that golden shot, header, volley or back-heel, possibly prefaced by the two runners-up in time-honoured reverse order. Bliss.

The challenge of naming the best goal ever scored AGAINST your favourites, however, is obviously not quite so enjoyable. Most of us like to think of ourselves as football purists, at least in a neutral sense, so that we can appreciate the beauty of a goal scored in a game not involving our club, even one by a despised rival. But a goal in your own team’s net is never completely free of attendant pain, and however wonderfully executed it might have been, you can’t actually enjoy it. You wince as it goes in, you home in on a possible offside flag, or any infraction of the rules that might lead to it being chalked off. When it counts, your mood sinks. You’re in no state to acknowledge the brilliance of it all. You just want your lot to set about redressing the balance.

But the fact remains; you will have seen many terrific goals scored against your own beloved side. You may possibly find that one amongst them tops even the best goal you can ever recall your lot scoring, though you will not, of course, admit that. As a Leeds United fan, I’d certainly never concede I’ve seen better opposition goals than Yeboah’s howitzers against Liverpool and Wimbledon, Strachan’s belter against Leicester, Currie’s banana shot against the Saints, Eddie Gray’s pleasure ride through the Burnley defence or any half-dozen you might care to name from Lorimer’s ferocious back catalogue.

Looked at without the partisan blinkers, though, my mind’s eye recalls some very memorable goals scored against Leeds, particularly at my end of Elland Road; the Gelderd End, or Kop. Jeremy Goss blasted home a fulminating volley for Norwich in 1993 that drew gasps of admiration. The crisply-struck blockbusters do tend to stick in the memory, and I’ve often complained that we seem to cop for more than our fair share of goal-of-the-season contenders that fly into our top corner, when they might so easily have zipped into the back row of the stand.

The one opposition goal that I’ll truly never forget, though, was in a category all of its own. In the early part of the 1990-91 season, Leeds had made a decent start to their first year back in the top flight since relegation in 1982. Consolidation of higher status was the name of the game, but United appeared to be capable of more, and would, in fact, achieve a top four finish as a prelude to actually winning the Title the following season. In these early days back in the big time, though, it was wonderful just to be there and holding our own. A visit from Queens Park Rangers wasn’t expected to present any real problems, and there was a relaxed and content air around Elland Road when Leeds moved into an early two goal lead.

Then, it happened, as it’s frankly happened too often in my time watching Leeds. We managed to salvage, from the jaws of victory, an unlikely 2-3 defeat. But one of those goals was scored by Roy Wegerle, South African-born U.S. international, now a golf pro, but then Leeds United’s latest nemesis. He picked the ball up wide on the right about halfway inside the Leeds half, executed a ridiculously mazy run on a by-no-means direct route to the edge of the area, during which he went past five Leeds players as if they just weren’t there, before shifting the ball finally onto his right foot and dispatching it past a flailing John Lukic. It was one of those moments when, despite your love of your own team, you just stopped for an instant, transfixed in wonder, before exclaiming “I say, what an absolute corker of a goal that was!”, or words to that effect.

It was a beautiful goal, a wondrous, marvelous gem of a goal. I’ll certainly never forget it, and seemingly new generations of QPR fans are always finding out about it, and wishing they could have seen it live. Well, I did see it, and although I may not have appreciated it at the time, it certainly gets my nomination for “best ever against Leeds”. I’m not alone in that, either – one other thing I recall from that day is the loud and generous applause Wegerle’s effort elicited from the notoriously parochial Leeds support.

It takes a very special goal indeed to get that reaction at Elland Road, and this was definitely as special as it gets – worthy of Maradona, perhaps … or even Eddie Gray.

Take a bow, son.

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Posted in Football

Tagged greatest goal, John Lukic, Leeds United, QPR, Roy Wegerle

Nostalgia – Not What It Used To Be

Posted on 29/01/2013 | Leave a comment

Show me a person who’s never felt that aching, yearning desire for the ‘Good Old Days’, and I’ll show you a twenty-something, or – tops – a thirtyish glass-half-full type. It’s part of the human condition, and believe me, you youngster nostalgia-heads, the longing for times past only gets worse and more compelling with age.

The thing is, though – it’s all a sham. Nostalgia has spawned virtually an entire industry, making zillions out of the ever-increasing urge to regress to what we think of as happier times, flogging us kitsch memorabilia and useless antiques at premium prices. All this, for a concept as hollow and insubstantial as a bubble. I’ll try to explain what I’m getting at.

The main thing you need to know about The Good Old Days, is that – they don’t exist. Or, more accurately, from the only perspective that matters – here and now – the memory of The Good Old Days is like a Siren’s song, calling seductively to you, whilst keeping the singer’s essential character hidden. And the essential character of The Good Old Days may be summed up as follows: more hardship, less enlightened attitudes, worse public health and life expectancy and just generally a lack of the things in life today we’d find it hard to live without. I won’t drone on here about smart phones, the internet, flat-screen TV’s and spiffy microwave-grills. You get the picture.

The late, lamented legend that was Tony Capstick summed up the flip-side of nostalgia very neatly indeed. In his hilarious pastiche of a famous bread advert, filmed on a steep and cobbled street to the accompaniment of Dvořák’s New World Symphony, Capstick intoned “We had lots of things in them days, they haven’t got today. Rickets. Diptheria. Hitler….. They dun’t know they’re born today”. As with all the best comedy, there’s a kernel of truth there.

So why this fierce desire to re-live days gone by, through old photographs, maybe, or a TV series set in whichever decade speaks to us of our particular formative years? Perhaps it’s a desire to meet up again with lost loved ones, which is readily understandable. But the nostalgic ache affects the vast majority of people, including those lucky enough never to have experienced bereavement. Maybe it really is just a longing for simpler times, but I truly don’t think so.

My pet theory – and I’ve thought about this a lot, as you tend to on your journey through middle-age – is that it’s not the mythical Good Old Days we’re all missing. Rather, it’s the Good Young Us. Everything that seems better in the eye of memory was originally seen through younger, sharper eyes, at a time when we inhabited a younger, more flexible and healthier body, when we mercifully lacked the cares of having to forge a living and look after dependents, when we could take life as it came to us, unafraid of the future and ready for anything. This, sadly, is not a set of circumstances fully valued or appreciated at the time – only in retrospect, when physical and mental powers are waning and the gaze we cast on the world is more jaundiced, do we really understand what we had, and what we’ve lost. Small wonder, then, that there’s a hankering to go back and regain our younger selves.

There’s a tendency, as well, for memory to reach further and further back into the distant past as we age. This means that a lot of older people spend much more of their time delving through their long-term recall, and find happiness in contemplating the days of their youth, a refuge of sorts from a modern world that seems more and more bewildering to them. It’s the kinder face of nostalgia – a therapy to help people cope with the iniquities of old age. But again, I would argue that it’s their own younger selves that Gran and Grandad are contentedly revisiting, and that the period setting of those memories is purely incidental.

We associate our golden days of youth with a definite time frame, that’s all, and it’s that association our brains seize on to hook us into yearning for whatever past time. For some, it’s World War Two, for others it might be the Fab Fifties, or even the Electronic Eighties. I hark back to the Sensational Seventies myself, but I’ve no real desire to ride a Raleigh Chopper again, or even to come home and watch “Love Thy Neighbour” on a tiny TV. But I would give a lot for the flat tummy, the sporting prowess, the soundness of wind and limb and the 20-20 vision I enjoyed, but never fully appreciated back then.

That’s what nostalgia is really all about, and we’d do well to face up to it – there’s more chance, after all, of science eventually mitigating the tyranny of old age, with its attendant infirmities, than there is of it building us a Time Machine. So perhaps we’d all better settle for what we’ve at least some chance of getting, rather than pandering to this hopeless desire for a past to which distance has lent a false enchantment. But that’s easier said than done – when the nostalgia bug bites, it bites hard.

Now – where did I put that Rubik’s Cube….?

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Posted in Life

Tagged Good old days, memories, Nostalgia, old age, Seventies, Wartime

Snouts In The Trough – But It’s Time Those Living High On The Hog Picked Up The Tab

Posted on 29/01/2013 | Leave a comment

Snouts In The Trough – But It’s Time Those Living High On The Hog Picked Up The Tab.

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Snouts In The Trough – But It’s Time Those Living High On The Hog Picked Up The Tab

Posted on 29/01/2013 | 1 comment

The thing about politicians is – if they’re not talking, or furiously thinking of a way out of their latest web of deceit, or maybe sleeping (a swift forty winks on the backbenches, the ultimate power nap), then they’re most likely at some or other official function, stuffing their faces with the finest of freebie food and drink.

Now, I’m not making a party political point here. I said “politicians”, and I meant the whole unsavoury crew of them, be they high-powered cabinet members, lobby fodder rank-and-file MP’s, or even your humble Joe Bloggs, Mavis Dogood or Tarquin FitzHerbert-Smythe in the local Council chambers. They all have the same basic bodily need for nutrition as us mere mortals. The difference is, they will quite often fill up to the Plimsoll line at the taxpayer’s expense. Is this fair or appropriate in these straitened times?

At a veritable crisis point of global financial meltdown, when our national debt is so high that even Wayne Rooney would need to ask for an extra week or two to pay it off, I find myself wondering: what’s the accumulated value of all the state and civic banquets, dinners, receptions, working lunches and other freebie jamborees that take place every day, all over the country? It must come to a good few bob. We’re not, after all, talking a few limp ham sandwiches, curling up at the edges and accompanied by motley shreds of anaemic lettuce. No, sir. These people do not skimp; they do themselves well, very well indeed. There’s proper, grown-up, posh food on heavily-laden and groaning tables – and it must be highly debatable how much productive thinking is left in those bloated plutocrats, after the desserts have been and gone, and the port, nuts and cigars pass around.

Of course, piling into the scran at the highest levels of power is nothing new. It’s been pretty much de rigueur ever since Henry I wolfed down half-a-dozen too many eels, and expired before he could gasp “surfeit of lampreys”. Kings, Queens, and assorted courtiers and other hangers-on have always been notable for their over-indulgence on rich food and fine wine. It sort of went with the territory in those far-off times, but it strikes a more discordant note these days when essential services – the culmination of the whole process of civilisation and enlightenment since before Henry I – are being cut left, right and centre. And yet still the state and political chomping goes on apace.

It’s only a matter of a couple of weeks since MP’s of all parties were calling for a 32% pay rise, despite their broad consensus that the rest of us should be grinning bravely and tightening our belts. Just what sort of message does that send out, when so much of their weekly calorific intake is provided and paid for, as part of their remit as legislators of our country? And the same applies at least in some degree to our business leaders – no subsidised canteen serving scrummy beans on toast with a poached egg on top for them – it’s Marco-Pierre White catering at the very least, no error – and waiter, send that bill to Accounts, there’s a good chap.

What if – bear with me here – what if MP’s, ponderous boardroom types, and indeed power-brokers everywhere were to embrace a novel concept, and actually pay for some of the scrumptious fare that comes their way so often, and gratis at that? If this were the general principle, multiplied across all the many thousands of vastly expensive official meals and banquets that take place in this over-stretched nation every week, what would be the saving to the national purse? I’m struggling to work that out on my fingers and in my head, but it’s a big, big number, make no mistake. It’s not as if the people we’re talking about are exactly impoverished – are they now? And what do the rest of us do when it’s time for lunch at work? Not everyone has even the subsidised canteen; many of us are away down to the high street for a cheese roll, which we’re – quite reasonably – expected to fund out of our own pockets.

It’s about time we all woke up to the fact that, on a grand scale, we’re being made right mugs out of, you and me. Every time there’s a new cost-cutting measure, or another idea for a wage freeze, you can bet your life it’s been hatched over the smoked-salmon canapés and the pâté de foie gras. And what’s more, we’re the simple souls paying for it. Could that money not be used much more productively, elsewhere?

Just think about that, the next time you’re counting the pennies at the end of the month, and wondering whether you can delay the big shop till after the weekend. Then again, that might even act as an appetite suppressant. Just thinking of all those banquets, all that luxury food, and above all, where the bill’s heading – might just actually make you sick.

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Posted in Politics

Tagged Animal Farm, banquet, Henry I, Monarchy, MP's, Parliament, public pay, public services, Wayne Rooney

A Day In The Death Of Leeds United

Posted on 24/01/2013 | Leave a comment

It’s not safe to identify any one day, defeat or disappointment as the nadir of Leeds United’s fortunes just now. At the moment, takeover and “fresh start” notwithstanding, we appear to be plummeting downhill faster than a greased pig. Today’s news that top scorer Luciano Becchio has submitted a transfer request is another notable low point – Leeds are making an unfortunate habit of losing their top players in January transfer windows. And yet, you somehow have that uncomfortable, chill feeling – even as a committed Whites fanatic – that, however bad things may seem, there’s plenty of scope for them to get worse.

Indeed, it’s arguable that things HAVE been worse – much worse – in the fairly recent past, than they are today. The run-up to the 2007-08 season, the club’s first in the third tier of English football, was catastrophic. Administration had brought about the unprecedented penalty of a 15 point deduction, leaving the beleaguered giants 5 wins short of zero points as the season started. But that season turned into a triumph of sorts – promotion was narrowly missed, and the whole points-deduction saga seemed to galvanise the support. On the pitch, the team delivered, particularly in the early part of the season, and a seemingly irresistible momentum was built up. Leeds really were United at this lowest ebb in their history.

At present, in some superficial measures, things are better – but in the most fundamental ways, they appear significantly worse. Obviously, the club now enjoys a higher status within the game – the dark days of League One football are receding into the past, at least for the time being. There have been high spots too, famous Cup victories and the odd satisfying away performance. At Elland Road, once a fortress notorious for intimidating opponents, form has been patchy. And yet Premier League teams have been put to the sword, and generally speaking the team will give anyone a game on their own patch. The underlying problem today though is more insidious than the acute emergencies immediately post-administration. It is the creeping cancer of apathy that pervades the club now.

It’s not difficult to see the signs of this. Read any of the fans’ forums, and a pattern swiftly emerges. The supporters, by and large, are sick of the way the club has been run over the past few years. Sick of paying top dollar for a distinctly second-rate product. Sick of the club’s habitual prevarications over transfer policy, of seeing our best players form a procession out of the exit door, sick to death of seeing lesser clubs easily out-match us for wages and transfer fees, despite the fact that our turnover and potential remain at the top end.

Leeds United, a great name in English football, by any measure, appears to have been run on the cheap for a long time now. Investment is minimal, the ability to retain promising players practically non-existent. The supporters’ expectations, born of great days in the past, remain high – and why shouldn’t they be? But those expectations show no sign of being met, or even approached. Last summer’s long drawn-out agony of a takeover saga descended too often to the depths of farce, as rumour countered rumour, and we all rode an internet-driven roller-coaster of optimism and despair, over and over again. But once concluded, that saga has not spawned a legacy of more investment and better club/fan relations. We appear to be stuck with more of the same; the changes appear to have been purely cosmetic.

On Saturday 12^th January, Leeds United played Barnsley away, a fixture that had produced humiliating three-goal thrashings in the previous two seasons. This time around, it was only a two goal thrashing, but the manner of defeat – the abject failure to muster any real threat up front, and the spectacle of midfield players gazing skywards as the ball whistled to and fro far above them – was too much for the long-suffering band of away fans in Leeds United colours. They complained, loudly. They advised the manager to be on his way. They questioned the fitness of the players to wear the famous shirt. The supporters feel they are being taken for mugs, and they have had enough.

All this has been true for a while – but for much of the past year, change has been in the air, and it has seemed reasonable to expect that things might be about to get better. Some of us dared to dream. But after the final whistle at Barnsley’s Oakwell ground, it seemed all of a sudden quite clear that the options for change had been exhausted, and that the future remains as bleak as it has been at any time since top-flight status was relinquished 9 long years ago.

Some of the fans – not all, but some – feel that there is now no way back for Leeds – not to anywhere approaching the pre-eminence they once enjoyed in the game. If that’s the case, then the question arises: what is a reasonable aim now? To gain promotion to the Premier League, and strive to survive? To become a yo-yo club, with promotion and relegation in successive years, never becoming established in the top-flight? That might be enough for many clubs, but at Leeds the memories of glory are that bit too vivid for the fans to settle for any such precarious existence, scratching around in the hinterland of old rivals’ success.

It may well be that, on that cold day in Barnsley, realisation dawned that the club Leeds United once were is now dead and gone. What is left behind may well still be worth supporting, but it is likely to be a pale shadow of what we once knew. Yesterday, there were rumours of high profile signings – and you knew, you just KNEW, that we were being softened up for more bad news. Today, it seems that Becchio is off, and we hear reports that recent loanees didn’t want to stay “because of the money situation up there”. It all stinks of a club rotten to the core, and dead at the top.

Leeds United – one of the truly great names in English football. RIP.

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Posted in Football

Tagged Barnsley FC, Leeds United, Luciano Becchio, transfer window

“Blue Bloods” – Off-The-Peg Morality and The American Dream

Posted on 23/01/2013 | Leave a comment

“Blue Bloods” is a CBS-produced TV drama – now in its third season – airing on Sky Atlantic in the UK, which typifies the successful formula used to create a top-rating series stateside. It centres on the Irish-American Reagan family, a bunch of high-achievers and strong role models, who pretty much run the NYPD between them, and also – in the shape of Assistant District Attorney Erin Reagan – have a massive influence over the prosecution of all the ne’er-do-wells apprehended week by week.

The Reagans are a disparate collection of characters – all human life is there, of a positive and admirable kind, anyway. Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck) is the head honcho, as Police Commissioner, his Pop and perennial éminence grise Henry (Len Cariou) also held that office, but is now retired and dispenses slightly crotchety wisdom informally, in the family setting. Frank’s two sons are obligingly different types of police officer – Danny (Donnie Wahlberg) is the hard-nosed yet lovable detective, and Jamie (Will Estes) is the rookie, law-graduated yet lovable street cop. Between them, these two officers are responsible for just about all the law enforcement and bad-guy nabbing in New York City on any given day, swinging into action after receiving pearls of fatherly wisdom from dad Frank, and hauling their quarry to be processed by sister Erin (Bridget Moynahan), the principled yet lovable prosecuting counsel.

As we can clearly see, the family theme beloved of American popular culture is particularly strong here. The Reagans, we learn, have hauled themselves up from humble and inauspicious circumstances (Frank’s grand-daddy was – whisper it softly – a shiftless alcoholic!) by hard work, unswerving rectitude, devotion to the Mother Church and regular injections of moral fibre dispensed at the family dining table. They think no small beans of themselves – oft is heard the stern admonition “Remember – you’re a Reagan”. The aforementioned dining table is a huge affair, laden with food symbolising the bounty deserved by all God-fearing, hard-working folk, and it is here that family issues are thrashed out, subject always to the casting-vote wisdom of one or other elder statesman.

On the street, the action is often hot and fierce, and some moral dilemma is always just around the corner. Detective Danny tends to be the fulcrum for most of this activity, his hard-nosed yet lovable tendencies neatly counter-balanced by his partner detective, Jackie Curatola (Jennifer Esposito), a tough yet lovable dame whose trusty gun is worn artlessly displayed upon a shapely hip, and whose heart is good. Patrolman Jamie, during momentary lulls, will deal with less immediately life-threatening issues – he brings a fresh-faced approach to law enforcement, frequently showing his more hard-bitten and cynical colleagues the error of their ways, by the application of homespun Reagan principles and a boyish grin.

The Reagans have had their problems; all has not always been rosy in their garden. Frank’s eldest son, Joe, died in the line of duty – but this might almost be seen as lay-your-life-down credibility, an essential qualification for such an exemplary family. Frank is also a widower, bless him, and daughter Erin is divorced – we get the distinct feeling she married beneath her, but hey, it would be hard not to. There are three generations of service veterans to provide the right kind of backbone for this American dream, and the recurring visits to the family table are a hymn to extended-family devotion, enlightened discipline for the youngsters, unquestioned fidelity in the surviving marriage (Danny’s, despite his regard for his disconcertingly hot detective partner) and just generally The Right Way Of Doing Things.

For anyone who likes some fairly compelling action, a neat delivery of morals and homilies every week, and the pre-packaged security of the family home and fairly smug prosperity, “Blue Bloods” is the ideal TV series. Beyond a nagging feeling that it would be easier to watch for a UK audience without some of the schmaltzy sermonising, it’s actually a pretty good watch – the production values are excellent, the acting generally good, and you do get used – eventually – to Selleck’s habit of slowly exhaling through his nose in a wise way, whenever he’s contemplating some knotty problem, or about to deliver a tablet of sagacity.

The suspension of disbelief is, in any event, a pre-requisite for a TV drama these days – the way real life pans out simply wouldn’t make good viewing. So you find you can handle the apparently accepted fact that one family seems to hold such complete sway over law enforcement and the administration of justice in a teeming metropolis like NYC. Then again, the Reagans are simply one hell of a family – as they’re usually just about to tell us.